even costco getting in on the act

[Simplysimon]

https://www.costco.co.uk/search?searchOption=uk-search-all&text=pv&sort=price-desc

 

[Adsibob]

5 minutes ago, Simplysimon said:

https://www.costco.co.uk/search?searchOption=uk-search-all&text=pv&sort=price-desc

 

I was hoping it would be cheaper. Just don’t understand why it’s so expensive.

[nod]

With a saving of a few hundred pounds per year 

The PV will need replacing long before it has paid for its self 

I still don’t get how installing PV stacks up financially 

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, nod said:

With a saving of a few hundred pounds per year 

The PV will need replacing long before it has paid for its self 

I still don’t get how installing PV stacks up financially 

It doesn’t. At these prices, it’s little more than a gimmick. The government should nationalise a team of 10,000 fitters and then offer free fitting as well as subsidise the cost equipment.

[SuperJohnG]

2 hours ago, nod said:

With a saving of a few hundred pounds per year 

The PV will need replacing long before it has paid for its self 

I still don’t get how installing PV stacks up financially 

I had this mindset a year ago, I wish I hadn't as it definitely is worthwhile and much quicker payback than you think. 

[Onoff]

Wow! How much? Think I'll stick to their chicken bakes and cottage pie then "feed" a homemade compost battery 💩

[nod]

4 hours ago, SuperJohnG said:

I had this mindset a year ago, I wish I hadn't as it definitely is worthwhile and much quicker payback than you think. 

The numbers don’t stack up 

The projective saving on our previous build was £200-300 per year 

This time the enthusiastic sap designer has stated that it could be as much as £500 per year 

It is a gimmick 

We prefer to spend the money on extra insulation 

 

Our friends have recently finished there third self build First being in the 80s

They where talked into PV 

Whilst I wouldn’t go as far as saying they regret there decision 

They admit that savings where exaggerated and will never see a return in there lifetime 

 

In saying that PV is good for the environment 

I will continue separate plastics and tins before chucking them in the bin 

[Trw144]

I was thinking about the costs of pv on our build yesterday, and came to the conclusion it only really stacks up if you can use the energy - which leads you onto batteries. However at this point, financially I think the best option is to ditch the PV and just have batteries charging on a night time rate 🤷‍♂️

[nod]

10 minutes ago, Trw144 said:

I was thinking about the costs of pv on our build yesterday, and came to the conclusion it only really stacks up if you can use the energy - which leads you onto batteries. However at this point, financially I think the best option is to ditch the PV and just have batteries charging on a night time rate 🤷‍♂️

I think what has disappointed our friends They paid 9 k and thought that was it 

But had a battery on the top of that and probably need another 

[pudding]

9k? For how big an array, sounds very expensive? Also, what's their heating source, electric or gas? I think without the FiT nowadays you definitely need batteries for self-use, otherwise it's too difficult to use enough of your own generation to really get your money's worth.

[joe90]

You can get DIY kits far cheaper than that, I did not put PV on my build but am considering it now prices are rising as I can shift my DHW and slab heating to midday (when it should be sunny) with a timer on my ASHP. I also believe batteries are not there yet cost wise.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325162613134?hash=item4bb533b98e:g:tZoAAOSwiwZcG6G6

Edited June 30, 2022 by joe90

[ProDave]

My PV cost me £1500 4 years ago with some diligent buying and all DIY install.  The savings have paid 2/3 of the cost already and with the higher prices now it won't be long before the savings have paid for it and it is then just a constant saving.

 

I am managing to self use almost all I generate, so don't believe batteries make sense yet for a normal 4kW system but probably do for a larger system where it would be hard to self use it real time.

 

I will probably look at a second off grid battery PV system on the roof of the car port when I get around to building that.

[JohnMo]

As Joe90 and ProDave say, DIY is the only way to go.  Batteries way to expensive, cost per cycle still way to high.  If you have an ASAP you can triple your useful output of your PV system.  PV also covers your home background daytime electric usage for most of the year.

Edited June 30, 2022 by JohnMo
Missed words

[Thorfun]

the price of Solar PV has definitely gone up in the last year or so. we paid £10k for a 10.5kWp array with optimisers installed. I'm starting to think we got an absolute bargain!

[nod]

2 hours ago, pudding said:

9k? For how big an array, sounds very expensive? Also, what's their heating source, electric or gas? I think without the FiT nowadays you definitely need batteries for self-use, otherwise it's too difficult to use enough of your own generation to really get your money's worth.

They are now in there 70s and put there trust in a local medium sized company That does heating electrical and of course solar 

I’m not sure of the size 

But the PV covers a 12 mtre roof 

Looks bloody awful 

 

There’s  lots of different angles to PV 

I think P  Daves take on it is probably the most accurate 

Buy cheap and self install 

Working off Dave’s figures 

It will take around 6 years for every 2 k spent Or there about 

Looking at the online adds It look like you will be in pocket after 12 months 

 

 

 

[joe90]

17 minutes ago, nod said:

Looks bloody awful 

Why I would not have PV on my “cottage with character “ but will have it on my workshop.

 

19 minutes ago, nod said:

Buy cheap and self install 

👍

 

[jayc89]

We'll have approx. 12m of south facing roof space on our extension. The Architect has suggested it's well positioned for PV but not gone so far as recommending it. Our plan would be to use it to heat the UVC and then power the rest of the house before feeding back to the grid. 

SWMBO and I both work from home now, so we do have laptops, monitors, kettle running throughout the day, kids when they're at home are on their tablets/TV etc but still not enough to absorb what the array should kick out on a good day. We don't have any intention of installing batteries. 

 

That was a long winded way of saying we're also leaning towards not fitting PV...

[Carrerahill]

12 hours ago, nod said:

I still don’t get how installing PV stacks up financially 

You don't buy it through the rip off installers or PV specialists.

 

Solar is cheap. Rip off installers make it expensive and put huge mark-ups on the equipment.

 

I bought my panels, inverters, mounting systems all from separate suppliers, I've installed some of them myself and the big Canadian Solar panels for the main roof I am getting a roofer to install the panels. Not a lot of money has been spent here. 

 

The PV market is one of these industries which is being built up as a big cash cow and myths are being spread around by those who it benefits to make people think it is all terribly complicated and very technical. The truth of it is that it is more or less plug and play and very DIY friendly, even if you need to get a friendly spark to do the final hook up. 

 

The cheapest non DIY install I know of was £1600 for 2kW, roofer put the panels up for £150 - electrician put in the electrical system for £300 and the rest was parts. That will pay for itself within 6 years and that time scale is reducing each time the energy costs go up, by the end of the year it could be 4 years!

 

It was like the insulation firms, £10,000 to insulate your house, save £££ - but when you did the maths it would take 30 years to pay for itself. If however, you went out and bought rolls of insulation for £2 as it was at the time, things were much more sensible. 

 

 

 

 

 

[nod]

Yes but there are plenty of people who won’t be able or want to climb up on a roof and install them there self 

The batteries are still expensive even if you install them yourself 

Either way your still looking at at least a decade probably twice that in most cases to see a return 

[Nickfromwales]

7 hours ago, nod said:

The numbers don’t stack up 

The projective saving on our previous build was £200-300 per year 

This time the enthusiastic sap designer has stated that it could be as much as £500 per year 

It is a gimmick 

We prefer to spend the money on extra insulation 

 

Our friends have recently finished there third self build First being in the 80s

They where talked into PV 

Whilst I wouldn’t go as far as saying they regret there decision 

They admit that savings where exaggerated and will never see a return in there lifetime 

 

In saying that PV is good for the environment 

I will continue separate plastics and tins before chucking them in the bin 

They should go back via MCS complaints procedure and get a full refund. 
 

EVERY SINGLE INSTALL that my PV partners have done for my M&E clients projects have either met OR EXCEEDED the stated return / revenue / break even point WITHOUT EXCEPTION. 

 

The above installers must be sharks, end of. MCS software categorically cannot be exaggerated and the contents are factual. These people should have had such documentation before spending a single penny, the content of which is very easy to read and completely digestible on any level. Simple maths demonstrated over several pages. Our surveys assume 17p/kWh in this software vs the actual of ~35p/kWh so has a 50% redundancy in that provision alone. 
 

1 hour ago, Carrerahill said:

You don't buy it through the rip off installers or PV specialists.

 

Solar is cheap. Rip off installers make it expensive and put huge mark-ups on the equipment.

 

I bought my panels, inverters, mounting systems all from separate suppliers, I've installed some of them myself and the big Canadian Solar panels for the main roof I am getting a roofer to install the panels. Not a lot of money has been spent here. 

 

The PV market is one of these industries which is being built up as a big cash cow and myths are being spread around by those who it benefits to make people think it is all terribly complicated and very technical. The truth of it is that it is more or less plug and play and very DIY friendly, even if you need to get a friendly spark to do the final hook up. 

 

The cheapest non DIY install I know of was £1600 for 2kW, roofer put the panels up for £150 - electrician put in the electrical system for £300 and the rest was parts. That will pay for itself within 6 years and that time scale is reducing each time the energy costs go up, by the end of the year it could be 4 years!

 

It was like the insulation firms, £10,000 to insulate your house, save £££ - but when you did the maths it would take 30 years to pay for itself. If however, you went out and bought rolls of insulation for £2 as it was at the time, things were much more sensible. 

 

 

 

 

 

Very out of touch perspective vs what we do every week. Not good advice at all, and nor is it factual. 
 

Cheap DIY installs will not be MCS so you CANNOT get SEG payments so would extend the payback not shorten it. Also allows cart Blanche for poor installations, incorrect shading surveys / mitigation etc. 

 

Nay-sayers from 3-4 years back are now coming back on all 4’s asking for us to fit them in at the ‘then’ price. Guess what they now deeply regret not doing……?

 

Some real nonsense being spouted here sorry. 
 

I would strongly advise anyone interested to get a FULL AND PROPER MCS survey carried out, which should be free of charge ( it is with us ) which will give them a price, kWh per month and annual generation summary, and the year they break even on the investment. Anyone who is unhappy after getting that done, who still went ahead with it, is a cock. Simples. 
 

Sone of our current proposals are showing anywhere between £400 - £800 p/a RoI. 3 decade warrantied systems showing breakeven in year 13-15, most recent one is sub 10 year breakeven. 
 

This is a non-commercial POV stating honest, genuine facts, and does not endorse any one company or product. 
 

I’ll see if I can post some numbers from recent proposals, bear with, beyond flat out atm. 
 

In 10 years time, the nay-sayers will be in floods of tears as they shout at anyone who leaves a light on or a device plugged in. Watch this space  

Edited June 30, 2022 by Nickfromwales
Clarity and typos

[nod]

I do one or two sites per year for a smallish family firm 

They brought specialists in to fit PV on four new build cottages 

They where up on The roof laptop open following a YouTube video 

Lots of cowboys out there 

[Nickfromwales]

The argument over batteries is manageable. 
Self consumption ( zero export ) can be achieved with a correctly sized  ( eg not too big ) array, but “we” do size to give excess in summer so you then also get some useful output in winter ( where you’ll be lucky to get 1kWh from a 4kWp array for 3 months of the year ).

Diversion to DHW, timing appliances to run sequentially eg on delay timers from 11:30 to 2:30 are just a few disciplines which are very very easy to facilitate. 
Choosing an EV charger with “Eco mode” aka trickle charge is great for capturing export ( when the car is home ) and is fully automated.

[Nickfromwales]

Just now, nod said:

I do one or two sites per year for a smallish family firm 

They brought specialists in to fit PV on four new build cottages 

They where up on The roof laptop open following a YouTube video 

Lots of cowboys out there 

Yup. 
Over 6000 MCS reg companies whilst the putrid FiT scheme was in full swing. Dwindled to a few 1000, and then when FiT went it’s now a few hundred. 
 

Just shows how grotesque a scheme it was, filling the pockets of rogue installers where they’d just siphon off the subsidy element of the cost of the system. The public couldn’t give two hoots because most are going on government paid holidays each year from the income. 
 

WTF!?!?!?

 

First time buyers or family’s on low income get the 2 finger salute. 
 

Then there’s the failed RHI scheme. £20m left in the pot which has now migrated to the Green home grant or something. 
 

Other than the residual Green grant, all it predecessors were just utter nonsense and a ridiculous waste of public money. A mechanism for wealthier folk to become even wealthier for doing the square root of fcuk all. 
 

Spoke to people last weekend who were getting £1600 p/a ( and guaranteed for the next 15+ years iirc ) and loads of free electricity to boot, who wanted to know if they could ‘improve’ their returns…………

 

Government driven lunacy. 

[joe90]

2 hours ago, jayc89 said:

We'll have approx. 12m of south facing roof space on our extension.

 

2 hours ago, jayc89 said:

we're also leaning towards not fitting PV...

In roof installation saving cost of tiles/slates,!!

[Carrerahill]

7 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Very out of touch perspective vs what we do every week. Not good advice at all, and nor is it factual. 
 

Cheap DIY installs will not be MCS so you CANNOT get SEG payments so would extend the payback not shorten it. Also allows cart Blanche for poor installations, incorrect shading surveys / mitigation etc. 

 

Nay-sayers from 3-4 years back are now coming back on all 4’s asking for us to fit them in at the ‘then’ price. Guess what they now deeply regret not doing……?

 

Sone no sense being spouted here sorry. 
 

I would strongly advise anyone interested to get a FULL AND PROPER MCS survey carried out, which should be free of charge ( it is with us ) which will give them a price, kWh per month and annual generation summary, and the year they break even on the investment. Anyone who is unhappy after getting that done, who still went ahead with it, is a cock. Simples. 
 

Sone of our current proposals are showing anywhere between £400 - £800 p/a RoI. 3 decade warrantied systems showing breakeven in year 13-15, most recent one is sub 10 year breakeven. 
 

This is a non-commercial POV stating honest, genuine facts, and does not endorse any one company or product. 
 

I’ll see if I can post some numbers from recent proposals, bear with, beyond flat out atm. 
 

In 10 years time, the nay-sayers will be in floods of tears as they shout at anyone who leaves a light on or a device plugged in. Watch this space  

I disagree with you.

 

I am acutely aware of the commercial PV industry, upon which, I formed my opinions. How can you make a statement such as "...nor is it factual"?

I do not want SEG payments, and I know of plenty of others who are not interested in SEG payments, what for anyway, they are peanuts. 

 

I would strongly advise, any technically minded person who likes a bit of DIY and doesn't get their knickers in a knot over doing things the unorthodox way, first investigates the cost of an array, an inverter and some isolators and a roll of cable and MC4 connectors and if it looks right to them, they get on with it. A variation of that is they do that but get some trades in to do the install and they get on with it. Then if you get someone who wants to do it all pukka through the books and pay someone's subscription for MCS accreditation then fine do that. Then of course there are those who are not able to do these things and just need a price to get it done, this is however a self-build forum, things tend to be skewed towards the DIYer!

 

Horses or courses, but it is not for you to say one way is "right" and one way is "wrong". At the end of the day, it boils down to electrical design and physics.

 

I have PV, my house more or less runs for free during the day now, I am exporting a bit but I don't care, I'll be taking the lighting loads, to start with, onto an off-grid setup with grid changeover for consecutive grey days, I will be doing this within the next couple of months and charging batteries to minimise export. So far I have saved about £240 on electricity and I still have another 1.2kW string to go on the roof (which is why I want the off-grid battery aspect) - at this rate I will have paid for the current spend in about 3 years. My aim is off-grid electrically within 3 years, albeit with more investment but my standing charge saving would pay for that within about 2.5 years as an isolated project. 

 

Some people also like to go to the main dealer to get their cars repaired and serviced some use a local indy. Depends who you speak to, they will tell you you must go and they are the best and they do it properly. You will also find the cowboy garage too. But there is a middle ground. Decades ago our family used a Land Rover master mechanic who went out on his own because he was fed up of working at the "creche" as he put it, it was him to 10 apprentices or something like that - they were damaging customer cars daily and he had to get out. Someone told us our cars would be damaged and the garage would not be right and we were taking a gamble, while he took his Range Rover to the main dealer, oil sump plug fell off on the A9 going on his family holiday. 

 

Once I have figures from the inverter I will post some of my own figures but I don't need to prove anything to anyone because the only person who would lose from me talking nonsense would be me, and you have to believe if I can save a pound, I will save a pound. So much so I am thinking about getting the Bio Diesel processor out of retirement.